CHAPTER III

Mademoiselle at the Luxembourg--Her Salon--The "Anatomies" of

the Heart--Projects of Marriage, and New Exile--Louis XIV. and

the Libertines--Fragility of Fortune in Land--_Fetes Galantes_.

With the approach of her thirty-fifth year, the Grande Mademoiselle

perceived by diverse signs that she was no longer young. She was forced

to recognise that her strength had its limitations, which fact had never

before been forced upon her. On February 7, 1662, Louis XIV. danced for

the first time a grand ballet entitled the "Amours of Hercules," and his

cousin of Montpensier took part. She was ill from fatigue. Another kind

of weariness overcame her; she became bored with fetes. She had been

present at so many gala occasions since her entrance into the world, and

had seen so many festivals and fireworks, garlands of flowers and

allegorical chariots, that she was now quickly satiated.

The King still loved this kind of abundant pleasure; those which he

offered to his Court sometimes lasted successive days and nights,

without giving time to breathe, and all being expected to feel continued

amusement. Mademoiselle was no longer capable of this. She was beginning

to long for the repose of home. Her sick headaches contributed to this

disability; age had increased them, and all women know that it is better

to suffer a headache in solitude. After a lively struggle, she had

returned to the palace of the Luxembourg and was lodging under the same

roof as her stepmother. The old Madame would have gladly relinquished a

neighbour whose presence presaged nothing good, but no one had sustained

the contention as no one was in the least interested in her welfare. One

reads in a fugitive leaf of the times issued on July 21, 1660: "This

affair was deliberated upon in the Court, and it was found that

Mademoiselle had the right to demand one of the apartments free, and

that Madame could not refuse it." It is said that the King wrote to

Madame in order to soften the blow; it was necessary to drain the bitter

cup to the dregs, and at a time in which Madame had great need of

tranquillity to install at her very door this tempestuous stepdaughter,

with whom no peace was possible.

Madame had "vapours," otherwise called a nervous malady. She was afraid

of noise, of movement, and of being forced to speak, and Mademoiselle

insisted upon making "scenes." "I teased her often," says the Princess

in her _Memoires_, "and very much despised her (in which I was wrong),

and she always responded as one who feared me, and with much

submission." The public did not consider it worth while to waste pity

upon Madame, because she bored every one; a fault never pardoned. Anne

of Austria, herself a very amiable woman, when not opposed, could never

suffer her inoffensive sister-in-law. The Queen Mother said to

Mademoiselle, who did not need this encouragement: "Her person, her

temper, and her manners are odious to me." The public was fundamentally

right in its antipathy. Madame was one of those people who render virtue

hateful, and in thus doing are very injurious to humanity.

The Luxembourg was commodious and gay. Mademoiselle enjoyed it, and it

pleased her to arrange for herself a grand existence as a Princess, rich

and independent. Nothing could be more displeasing to the Court. As soon

as Louis XIV. had assumed full power, he let it be seen that he wished

no social centre in his kingdom other than his own palace. His cousin

did not take this fact into account. This was not bravado. It was due to

the impossibility of comprehending that "a person of her quality" could

be reduced to the role of satellite.

It is certain that nature had not prepared her for this role. "I would

rather pass my life in solitude," wrote she, "than restrain in any way

my proud humour, even at the expense of my fortune. I have no

complaisance, and I demand a great deal from others."[94] She also adds:

"I do not willingly praise others and very rarely blame myself." With

this avowed disposition, it would perhaps have been wiser not to go too

often to the Louvre. It was a great imprudence to attract the crowd to

herself as she had done at the time in which she was openly opposing the

Tuileries.

The salon of Mademoiselle became the first in Paris, the most

interesting and select. Since Paris had tasted the pleasures of clever

conversation and discovered, under the direction of Mme. de Rambouillet,

the genius of this delicate art, it could not do without it. The

initiator was still living, but she was old and ill, and her circle had

long been dispersed.[95]

Mlle. de Scudery had collected together as many of the remnants of her

first salon as she could, and had thus laid the foundation for the

famous Saturdays, at which wit and knowledge were dispensed in

abundance. Nevertheless, it was not the same. The Saturdays of "Sapho"

brought back the literary people to the pedantry from which Mme. de

Rambouillet had more or less delivered them. They were left too much to

themselves, and, thus isolated, they had lost a certain intellectual

grace acquired by the friction between the aristocrats and the

blue-stockings.

The mind as well as the body has its own manners, and they may be bad or

good. In 1661, the Court alone had breeding. There existed no other

society in which the first comer understood how to speak a language easy

and _galant_, well adapted to plumed hats and elegant bows. These

belonged to the traditions of the place. Such courtesies were lacking

with the learned friends of Mlle. de Scudery, who no longer felt

themselves spurred on by the fine gentlemen, so alert, capable of such

light railleries, and detesting pedants.

The feminine society of the Saturdays had also too little intercourse

with duchesses and marquises to replace the Hotel Rambouillet. Mlle.

Bocquet, who filled a large place in the chronicles of the Saturdays,

was very amiable and played the lute "marvellously,"[96] but she

belonged to the small bourgeoisie. Mlle. Dupre, another intimate, was an

intelligent and educated girl, who had made a special study of

philosophy. She quoted Descartes too often to have "the air _galant_" in

conversation. As much could be said of others. Mlle. de Scudery herself,

who had been received in the best company and who had formally combated

the "Blue-stockingism" with admirable good sense, had not written

thirty-two octavo volumes with impunity. There still remained a little

ink on the end of her fingers. It seemed as if all the pedants of France

held their classes in her house. Plays upon words filled the papers

scattered about, upon which "Prosecutions" were held. The "Illustrious

Sapho" had truly inspired Moliere when he wrote _Les Precieuses

Ridicules_; in vain, M. Cousin refuses to believe it.[97] I do not

myself think that she escaped.

Mademoiselle rendered to the wits of the day the service of sending them

back to the Court for lessons in language and manners. We are well

informed of this, thanks to the fantasy of a Princess which produced a

little literature upon the model offered by the Luxembourg.

In 1657, Mademoiselle, being at Champigny for the Richelieu lawsuit, the

Princess of Tarente[98] and Mlle. de la Tremouille[99] showed her their

literary portraits written by themselves.[100] These were imitations of

those which Mlle. de Scudery, creator of the kind, gave in her

romances,--the personalities to be divined with a key. "I had never

before seen anything of the kind; I found them very _galants_, and wrote

my own." After her own, she made others, and exacted them from those

about her.

From this resulted a repertoire unique of its kind, in which noble

personages, of both sexes and all ages, have been so obliging as not to

leave us ignorant of themselves, from the state of their teeth to their

opinions upon love, nor have they omitted to present similar details

concerning their friends.

The collection of these _Portraits_[101] reveals to us how the

aristocracy then viewed itself, or, at least, how it wished to be

estimated by others. The ordinary beginning was to picture the face and

bearing. The fashion was to do this with sincerity, which by no means

indicates modesty. The famous Duchesse de Chatillon warned readers that

she was going to speak with a naivete "the greatest possible."

This is why [continues she] I can say that I have the most

beautiful and best formed figure which has ever been seen.

There is none so regular, so free, so easy. My bearing is

entirely agreeable, and in all my actions I have an air

infinitely _spirituel_. My face is a most perfect oval,

according to all standards; my forehead is slightly elevated,

which aids the regularity of the oval. My eyes are brown, very

brilliant, and very deeply set; the gaze is very gentle and, at

the same time, full of fire and spirit. I have a well-made

nose, and as for the mouth, it is not only fine and well

coloured, but infinitely agreeable, made so by a thousand

little natural expressions not to be seen in any other mouths.

My teeth are very beautiful and regular. I have a very small

chin. I have not a very white skin. My hair is a clear

chestnut, and very lustrous. My neck is more beautiful than

ugly. As for my arms and hands, I am not proud of them; but the

skin is very soft and smooth. It would be impossible to find a

thigh better made than mine or a foot better turned.

The description of the physique was a rule of the Portraits, not even

the _religieuses_ believing that it should be dispensed with.

Among the Portraits is found one of an Abbess who visited Mademoiselle,

the inspiring Marie-Eleonore de Rohan, a person much esteemed on account

of her mother, the famous Duchesse de Montbazon, but very disconcerting,

notwithstanding, for our modern ideals of monastic life.

She divided herself between the cloister and the world, sufficiently

edifying when it was needful, lively and brilliant the remainder of the

time, and as natural in the one role as in the other. The Abbess

composed works of piety for her nuns,--among others _La Morale de

Salomon_, many times re-edited, and the _Paraphrases des sept Psaumes de

la Penitence_. The lady of society placed herself before her mirror and

wrote without a shade of embarrassment: "I have some haughtiness in my

physiognomy and some modesty. I have too large a nose, a mouth not

disagreeable, lips suitable, and teeth neither beautiful nor ugly." This

"nose too large" shocked the savant Huet. In reproducing the portrait of

Mme. l'Abbesse, he wrote: "As the beauty of the nose is one to which I

am very sensitive, permit, Madame, that I should begin with yours. It is

large; it is white, slightly aquiline, and gives something _spirituel_

to your smile."

Another phrase of Huet's gives us a vision of how these

pseudo-religieuses, whose species was destined to disappear with the

reform of convents, a not regrettable fact, accommodated the convent

garb with coquetry: "One cannot imagine," pursued the future bishop,

"more beautiful hair than yours; it is ash colour, blond, curls in a

very agreeable manner, and admirably suits your face, as far as I have

been able to judge, when it has escaped by chance, in spite of your care

to conceal it."

After the body comes the temper, tastes, qualities, and defects of the

mind. Here lies the lasting interest of the Portraits. It is valuable to

know from first hand, through its own confidences, that this

aristocratic society, from which the King exacted the complete sacrifice

of its independence, hated nothing more than restraint, and did not

hesitate to say so. Men and women, speaking for themselves, return

constantly to this point, and always in the same terms: "I hate

restraint. Restraint is insupportable to me." "I have an aversion for

all that is called restraint." "I suffer oppression impatiently and I

passionately love liberty."

From the point of view of absolute monarchy and the discipline which it

wished to impose upon the Court, the French nobility had very bad

habits. This nobility professed love of the chivalric virtues, and

hatred of anything resembling baseness or disloyalty. In this, it was

sincere, only we must admit that opinions are constantly changing even

in relation to morals, and that to-day, we might have difficulty in

agreeing with a gentleman of 1660 as to what is loyal or base and what

is not. Honour commanded the gentleman to avenge offences against

himself without too closely examining into the methods of so doing.

Custom authorised him to be unjust and to act with bad faith towards the

lowly, common, and feeble, in particular when money was owed. Honesty

was a bourgeois virtue. Mademoiselle considered it unworthy that people

of quality should abuse their authority to "ruin miserable creditors,"

but she was an exception.

The obligations of "honour" were extending to all conditions. Vatel was

praised for having killed himself because the fish did not rise. "It

was said," wrote Mme. de Sevigne, "that this sort of honour was a

strength."

It was not the same with another sentiment which filled the plays of

Corneille and which is constantly referred to in all the writings of the

time. General consent reserved for people of quality the privilege of

having ideas of "Glory and of the 'Beautiful' or the True," which led,

according to Huet's definition, to the desire for grand things. The

desire for "true glory," which is carefully distinguished from what he

called the "halo of glory," was the aristocratic sentiment "par

excellence." Even among the authors of the _Portraits_, every one was

not considered to possess the high capacity for strongly feeling this

longing.

In spite of the prevailing licentiousness of the Court, there still

remained in this brilliant society many pure women. At the same time,

virtue was not particularly honoured. It was a matter of personal taste,

the nobility only attaching a secondary and conventional importance to

its practice. The women "pure," or those who were supposed so to be,

received praise from friendly pens. The others were not looked at

askance, except by the Jansenists and other sombre spirits.

The young Comtesse de Fiesque, with whom Mademoiselle had been embroiled

at Saint-Fargeau, had a well-established reputation for gallantry. The

anonymous author of her Portrait makes allusion to this, and hastens to

add, "Truly this does her no harm." No harm at all! Mademoiselle did

not think of it when Mme. de Fiesque came to demand pardon for her

impertinences: "She threw herself on her knees before me; I raised her

up and embraced her; she wept with joy. She is a worthy woman, only too

easily led away, but good at heart."

Naturally men spoke very freely of women; it was like the crowing of

cocks. An anonymous writer, who might have been the poet Racan,[102]

represents himself as "very ugly, very stammering, and very

disagreeable, very grumbling besides and untruthful," and goes on, "I am

very bold with women and quite as successful as if I were good-looking

and possessed the most agreeable qualities in the world to make myself

well received. I have indeed found myself sometimes as you see me..."

There is still greater contempt expressed for women in the following

passage from the Portrait of La Rochefoucauld by himself: "Formerly I

was a little _galant_; now not at all, although still youthful. I have

renounced all flirtations. I am only astonished that there should still

be so many worthy people who occupy themselves in culling these 'little

flowers.'" Considering Mme. de Longueville, this statement is rather

hard. I would remark in passing, that La Rochefoucauld was

forty-five[103] at the moment in which he found himself somewhat

"young to renounce flirtations." Moliere, however, was soon to make all

Paris laugh at the expense of Arnolphe,[104] who indulged in love

affairs at the age of forty-two. Shall we conclude that Moliere

attempted to lessen the limit of the age of love, or was it only in the

theatre that fashion exacted young lovers? I leave this question to the

clever. It is not without importance in the history of sentiments.

[Illustration: =FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD= From the engraving by

Hopwood after the painting by Petitot]

The fashion of Portraits lasted but little more than two years with

those who were its sponsors; as soon as the custom reached the

bourgeoisie, the people of quality abandoned it. The very lively taste

developed in the middle class, in their turn, for this diversion proved

of real service to literature. The imitators of the "Galerie" learned,

as previously the creators of the game had done, to know the "interior

of people."[105] "The anatomies" of their own hearts, imperfect as they

were, habituated them to discern the "qualities and temper of

people,"[106] and thus a large public was prepared to comprehend the

women of Racine.

Mademoiselle was one of the first to profit by the "soul studies" which

she had brought into favour. There remains a little passage in a portion

of her _Memoires_, written after 1660, which clearly indicates this.

Progress is equally marked in a little romance with a key, entitled

_Histoire de la Princesse de Paphlagonie_, which was composed and

printed at Bordeaux in 1659, during the prolonged sojourn of the Court

at that place.

This is not the only imaginative work for which this facile pen[107] is

responsible, but it is the only one worthy of notice. The subject is

without interest; Mademoiselle has incorporated in a literary tale the

absurd quarrels of her household: "I made a little history which was

finished in three days, by writing in the evening after returning from

the Queen." In compensation, there are in the _Princesse de Paphlagonie_

some sketches after nature, written with a firm and live touch, a

novelty with Mademoiselle. A passage upon the blue room of Mme. de

Rambouillet will prove a great aid in any attempt to reconstruct an

elegant interior under Louis XIV., if the experiment should ever be made

as has been suggested of playing the comedies of Moliere in the true

"chamber" of Philaminte or of Celimene. Others have spoken of the rooms

in which Mme. de Rambouillet received. The harmonious decoration and the

scholarly disorder have been before described, yet no one but

Mademoiselle has given us the intimate atmosphere of the sanctuary, with

its measured and discreet light, its luxury of flowers, its objects of

art, and its small but choice library betraying the tastes and the

preferences of the divinity of the place. The description resembles

more nearly the salon of an intelligent woman of the twentieth century

than a suite of the Chateau of Versailles.

The guests of Mademoiselle profited also by the refinement of her

tastes. She enforced one single rule in her salon: cards were banished.

No one was exposed to the danger of being ruined, as was the case in the

circle of the King, who encouraged heavy play. It did not displease

Louis XIV. to be the Providence of the losers, this again being a method

of keeping his nobles in hand. His cousin in no way shared in such

considerations. She said: "I hate to play cards," and only played when

it was impossible to avoid doing so. She did not at all like to lose. It

was remarked that the Luxembourg had gained in gaiety with the exclusion

of gambling games. "There is a hundred times as much laughter," relates

the Abbe de Choisy,[108] at this date very young and a frequent guest at

the palace of the Luxembourg, where he met numerous companions of his

own age.

The three daughters of the old Madame, Mlles. d'Orleans, d'Alencon, and

de Valois,[109] were always with their step-sister. They escaped from

their deserted apartment to run towards the noise and movement; their

life was too sad with Madame and her eternal "vapours." Relegated to

their chambers as at Blois, with some childish companions, among whom

was Louise de La Valliere,[110] still unknown, they lived in a state of

distrust of their almost invisible mother, who never addressed a word to

them except in scolding.

At least, with Mademoiselle one had the right to move. Young people had

great freedom. Little games were organised. Parties of hide and seek and

blind-man's-buff were enjoyed. "As I had violin players, it was easy to

dance in any room sufficiently distant from Madame." The Abbe de Choisy

adds a gracious detail: "There were violinists, but ordinarily they were

silent and we danced to singing. It is so charming to dance to the sound

of the voice." While the young moved gaily about, their elders had also

their little games.

Everything yielded, however, to the unequalled pleasure of conversation.

Among those who gave eclat to the Luxembourg, the names of La

Rochefoucauld, Segrais, Mme. de Lafayette, and Mme. de Sevigne may be

mentioned. Mademoiselle herself often led the conversation, beating the

drums a little, her fashion in everything, but also with a certain

spontaneity which she always displayed.

Conversation was, during more than a century, even to the time of the

Revolution, to be the great delight of intelligent France, and this

pleasure rendered incomparable service to the French language, which had

rather deteriorated during the first periods of the seventeenth century.

It was immediately perceived that the worst fault for a talker was to

speak like a book, and the French owe to this simple observation the

lesson which taught them to become the first in the world for vivacity

and naturalness in the art of conversation. The habitues of the

Luxembourg only regretted that the conversation did not oftener turn

upon love. But, in this respect, Mademoiselle was not as complaisant as

at Saint-Fargeau. We have seen that, in practice, she closed her eyes;

this simplified life. For her own pleasure, she preferred other topics;

this particular one became at length insupportable to her. "I am much

criticised," says she in her _Portrait_, "because the verses I like the

least, are those which are passionate, for I have not a tender soul."

Besides, she had really nothing more to say upon the subject of love.

She had just made her profession of faith in a correspondence with Mme.

de Motteville, who, while awaiting something better, circulated a

manuscript in which one reads, "Its conditions are shameful; it is

robbery and unjust, without faith and without equity. It is an impiety;

it mocks the holy sacrament. Marriage adjusts nothing: everything is

given to man."

"Let us escape from slavery," cried Mademoiselle. "Let there be at least

one corner of the globe in which one can say that women are their own

mistresses." Every one has the right to despise love and marriage,

provided only that one does not insist on applying this sentiment only

to others. The youth of the Luxembourg knew too well that Mademoiselle

sought with an increasing ardour that "slavery" against which in

conversation or in writing she called her sex to revolt. Her intimate

friends realised that she was inventing illusions, under the influence

of a possible possession which induced a belief in their reality. She

had believed in an eager tenderness on the part of the little Monsieur

who had married some one else. After the restoration of the Stuarts

(April, 1660), she imagined (the recital is fully given in her

_Memoires_) that the King, Charles II., whom she had refused with

disdain when he was only a poor pretender, had no other intention in

remounting the throne than again to demand her hand, and that she would

nobly respond: "I do not deserve this, having rejected your suit when

you were in disgrace. The remembrance of this would always rest on our

two hearts and would prevent true happiness." This fine response has

been quoted a hundred times. Unfortunately, it is very clearly proved

through the testimony of English documents[111] that Mademoiselle had no

occasion to make it.

Advances, alas! had come from one side only and had been ill received.

"I very much desire the marriage of Mademoiselle," wrote Lady

Derby[112] to her sister-in-law, Mme. de la Tremouille, through whom

passed the "insinuations," "but the King has a great aversion to it on

account of the contempt which she has shown him. I have spoken of her to

Marquis d'Ormond, but I have met with little encouragement." In another

letter: "I have proposed Mademoiselle, but I have little hope. If the

King looks for wealth, we can hardly expect greater than with

Mademoiselle. But I fear that having been despised in his poverty, he

may be little disposed to regard such a marriage." Charles II. would

listen to nothing; he had guarded a grudge against his cousin. On the

other hand, there is every appearance of truth when she states that the

old Duc Charles III. de Lorraine,[113] had demanded her "on his knees"

for a youth of eighteen, Prince Charles de Lorraine, his nephew, who

became afterwards one of the most famous Austrian generals. It was a

question, as can well be understood, of a political combination.

Unfortunately, Prince Charles himself had another project, better suited

to his age. He was in love with the eldest daughter of Madame,

Marguerite d'Orleans, who returned his affection with all her heart. The

youthful society of the Luxembourg accuses Mademoiselle of having,

through jealousy, caused this project to fail. "The affair had been

advanced," relates that gossip, the Abbe de Choisy, "but the old

Mademoiselle had talked and cackled so much that she spoiled

everything." She was desperate at the thought of her younger sisters,

beggars compared to herself, marrying under her very eyes. Marguerite

d'Orleans made, out of spite, a marriage which turned out badly,[114]

but through which Mademoiselle in no way profited. Owing to a singular

change of desire, from the day on which it had depended upon herself to

marry Prince Charles, she had only felt contempt for this little prince

"_sans forts_."[115]

These caprices made the King impatient, who ended by making negotiations

with Lorraine without any longer occupying himself with his cousin.

Louis XIV. still retained the old monarchical principles in relation to

the marriage of princesses. He regarded them simply from the point of

view of politics; questions to be settled by governments and into which

sentiments must not be permitted to intrude. The idea that every human

being has a right to happiness did not belong to his times, and if it

had been suggested, the King would have surely condemned it, for it

insisted upon individual interests as opposed to those of the community,

the rights of which appeared specially sacred to the people of the

seventeenth century.

Louis XIV. did not believe for himself that he had the right to accept

only the agreeable duties belonging to his "trade of king," since he had

undertaken an existence devoted to strenuous labour, when it would have

been so pleasant to do nothing. According to his principle, the higher

the position of an individual, the more it was fitting that he should

sacrifice his own desires to the public good. Mademoiselle had the

honour of being his first cousin; he had firmly resolved to marry her,

or not to marry her, to bestow her hand upon a hero or a monster,

according as he should judge it useful to "the service of the King."

There was a certain grandeur in this fashion of recognising

relationship.

It had not occurred to the King that Mademoiselle would ever have the

audacity to resist him. It can be said that any real understanding

between the two was an impossibility. Mademoiselle had lived too long in

the midst of the opposition to yield to the notion of absolute royal

power without limitations and including all possible persons. Louis XIV.

had a too profound faith in the doctrine of the divine right of kings to

refuse for himself any of the prerogatives devolving upon him. Both

these opinions represented Frenchmen at large; but for the moment

Mademoiselle was being borne along by the ebbing tide, Louis XIV. by the

rising one.

This Prince had entered the world at an opportune moment to profit by a

doctrine which, according to a happy expression, seemed made for him as

he for it. After the Reform, the enforcing the old theory of the divine

origin of power had a beneficial result. The populace in many a country

and province had found themselves as much interested as the sovereigns

in suppressing the political power of the Pope outside of his own

States, and resenting his interference in the affairs of other

countries.

In France, in the sixteenth century, one meets with Calvinist

theologians amongst the writers who claimed that princes received their

power directly from God, and from God alone. The immediate consequence

of this doctrine was to heighten the eclat of royalty. Princes became

images of divinity, and even something more; Louis XIV., not yet five,

heard himself spoken of as the "Divinity made visible." Two years later,

the Royal Catechism[116] explained to him that he was "Vice-Dieu."

Twenty years later Louis XIV. was "Dieu," without any qualification, and

Bossuet himself declared it from the pulpit. On April 2, 1662, preaching

at the Louvre and speaking of the duties of kings, Bossuet cried: "O

Gods of nations and of lands, you must die like mortals; nevertheless,

until Death, you are Gods."

When a man hears such statements without shrinking, he is quite ready to

accept all the consequences. "Kings," writes an anonymous person, "are

absolute lords of all who breathe in any portion of their empire."[117]

Louis XIV. has very clearly formulated the same thought in his

_Memoires_: "The one who has given kings to men has wished that they

should be respected as his lieutenants, reserving for himself alone the

right to examine their conduct. It is the divine wish that any one born

a subject should obey without question."[118] It must be added that

Louis had arrived at these conclusions under a pressure of public

opinion, which had become impatiently desirous of giving to monarchy the

strength needed to place the shattered land again in a condition of

order.

On the death of Mazarin, France resembled a large establishment whose

cupboards, confided to a negligent steward, had not during an entire

generation been put in order. A flash of vivid hope passed through

France on seeing its young monarch, vigorously aided by Colbert, put the

broom to the mass of abuses and inequities which bore the name of

administration, and show himself resolved, in spite of resistance, to

introduce into the great public services order and moral cleanliness.

This was not finished without tears and grinding of teeth, not without

some injustice also, as in the case of Foucquet, assuredly culpable, but

paying for many others, of whom Mazarin was the first. But this

cleansing _was_ accomplished. First, the finances were attacked, with

the happy result that people paid less and that the imposts returned

more; then justice,--law reform was commenced in 1665, and the "grands

jours" of Auvergne were opened the same year; the army,--the soldiers,

paid regularly, committed fewer disorders, and the nobility learned,

willingly or not, military obedience.

At the same time, industry and commerce increased to such an extent

that, from 1668, orders flooded Paris "from the entire world" for a vast

number of articles which ten years previous had been imported. The

ambassador from Venice, Giustiniani, writes this statement to his

government.

The strong will of the master had put the country in motion. Louis XIV.

was confirmed in his high opinion of absolute monarchy. The same year in

which Bossuet had encouraged him to believe himself above ordinary

humanity, the King decided, with a perfectly equable conscience, to

marry the Grande Mademoiselle to a veritable monster, in the interest of

a political combination which he held at heart, for he returns to it

several times in his _Memoires_. His father-in-law, Philippe IV.,

menaced the independence of Portugal.[119] Louis XIV. hesitated to

assist Portugal openly, on account of the treaty of the Pyrenees.[120]

On the other hand, he considered double-dealing more honest to the

Spaniards than their conduct might be to him if opportunity permitted.

"I cannot doubt that they would have been the first to violate the

treaty of the Pyrenees on a thousand points, and I should believe myself

failing in my duty to the State, if, through being more scrupulous, I

should permit them freely to ruin Portugal, and to fall back upon me

with their entire strength."

It seemed to him that he could conciliate all by aiding Portugal

secretly, and Turenne had no repugnance to this course. This kind of

action was then called, and is often still designated, sagacious

statesmanship.

Such being the situation, Turenne came one afternoon to seek

Mademoiselle in her cabinet. The account of this interview has been

preserved for us by the Princess, and we can this time trust her

accuracy. Her _Memoires_ are in accord with contemporary witnesses. It

was towards the end of the winter of 1662. Turenne seated himself at the

corner of the fireplace and began with tender protestations. "As I am

somewhat brusque, I at once demanded of him, 'What is the question?' He

replied: 'I wish to marry you.' I interrupted him, saying: 'That is not

easy; I am content with my condition.'

"'I will make you Queen. Listen to me. Let me tell you everything, and

afterward you can speak. I wish to make you Queen of Portugal.' 'Fi!'

cried I to myself, 'I do not wish it.' He went on: 'Maidens of your

quality have no desires; they must act as the King wills.'"

The monarch whose mention makes Mademoiselle cry "Fi!" was called

Alphonse VI., and was not yet twenty. At twenty-three, the Abbe de

Saint-Romain,[121] our envoy to Portugal, reported that he could

neither read nor write. In compensation, he pulled the ears and tore out

the hair of those who approached him, and this was in his "good days";

in the bad ones, he struck, indifferently with his feet, hands, or

sword, any one who vexed him. His subjects no longer dared to pass

through the streets at night, because one of his diversions was to

charge at them suddenly in the "darkness and to try to spit them."

In person, Alphonse VI. was a fat little barrel, paralysed in one limb,

"gluttonous and dirty," almost always drunk, and vomiting after his

meals. He wore six or seven coats one over the other, amongst which "a

petticoat of three hundred taffetas, embroidered with pistol shots";

upon his head, a hood falling over his eyes, several caps over this, one

of which covered the ears, and an "English bonnet" over all. "His body,"

pursues the Abbe, "smells horribly, and he has always bad ulcers in the

softer portions ... and these offences could not be supported if he did

not bathe once daily in winter, twice in other seasons." Fear obliged

him to make "seventeen people always sleep in his chamber."

Turenne, however, forced himself to gild this rather bitter pill. He

pointed out to Mademoiselle how useful it would be and for what reasons

to have a French princess on the throne of Portugal. He promised her,

knowing her special weakness, that she should be absolute mistress of

the "great and powerful army"; that the King would give it entirely

over to her by degrees. Without doubt, Alphonse VI. was a paralytic,

"but," asserted Turenne, "this does not appear when he is dressed; he

only slightly drags one leg, and is a little awkward with his arm. So

much the better, if his intelligence also is a little slow. It is not

known whether or not he has any wit; after all, it is only good form for

husbands to be gay."

"But," replied Mademoiselle, "to be the link of a perpetual war between

France and Spain seems to me a very undesirable position." The situation

would be still worse if, as she was convinced would be the case, the two

crowns should arrive at an accommodation.

"A truly beautiful future: to have a drunken and paralytic husband, whom

the Spaniards would chase from his kingdom, and to return to France to

demand alms, when all my wealth has been dissipated, and to remain only

the queen of some little village. It is good to be Mademoiselle in

France with five hundred thousand francs of income, and nothing to

demand of the Court. Thus placed, it is foolish to move. If the Court

becomes weariness, one can retire to one's chateau in the country, in

which a little private court of one's own can be held. It is very

diverting also to build new houses. Finally, as mistress of one's own

wishes one is happy, for one does what one wills."

"But," returned Turenne, "remaining Mademoiselle, even admitting all

that you have said, you are still subject to the King. He commands what

he wills; when his wishes are refused, he scolds; a thousand

disagreeable things are felt at Court; often the King goes farther, he

chases people away. When they are content in one place, he sends them to

another. He orders journeys from one end of the kingdom to the other.

Sometimes, he imprisons recalcitrants in their own homes, or sends them

into convents, and in the end, obedience must come. What can you reply

to this?"

"That people of your station do not menace those of mine," cried

Mademoiselle in anger; "that I know what I must do; that if the King

says anything contrary, I will see what I shall respond to him."

She forbade Turenne to mention this affair again, and withdrew. "Five or

six days later, he again addressed me." At this time, some common

friends were present. Mademoiselle grew anxious. How far was Turenne the

authorised messenger of the King? She wrote to the latter to provoke an

explanation. No response. She confided her trouble to the Queen Mother,

who confined herself to these words: "If the King wishes this, it is a

terrible pity; he is master; as for me, I have nothing to say in the

matter."

"I was in frightful haste," adds Mademoiselle, "that the time for the

Baths of Forges should come, and that I might go away." The season

arrived. It was needful to take leave of the King. She wished to have

the Court plainly understand her intention: "'Sire, if your Majesty is

thinking of my establishment, here is M. de Beziers, who will go to

Turin; he can negotiate my marriage with M. de Savoie.'--'I will think

of you when it suits me, and marry you when it will be of service to

me,' in a dry tone which much frightened me. After this, he saluted me

very coldly, and I went away and I took my waters."

Mademoiselle had the imprudence both to talk and write. Bussy-Rabutin

even pretends that "she had written a letter to the King of Spain, which

was intercepted," suggesting a fete in his neighbourhood; but this is

difficult to believe, however inconsiderate Mademoiselle sometimes was.

From Forges, Mademoiselle went to the Chateau d'Eu, which she had bought

a short time before. It was at this place, October 15, 1662, that she

received from the King commands to return to Saint-Fargeau, "until new

orders." Upon the route she met letters from every one.

To be banished for having refused to marry Alphonse VI.,--the country

was not yet ready for these consequences of the new regime. It was soon

known that Mademoiselle had ordered from Paris "needles, canvas, and

silk," as if she expected to have on her hands plenty of spare time. But

if affairs remained at this point, she was not paying too dearly for the

pleasure of escaping being made Queen of Portugal. This was her own

opinion, and she became very amiable.

* * * * *

The departure of Mademoiselle did not leave a large vacuum in the young

Court; there was at the official ceremonies one princess the less, and

this was all. For the new generation had passed with the King to the

front ranks; the Grande Mademoiselle was now only the "old

Mademoiselle," as Abbe de Choisy called her. The youthful loves and the

pleasures belonging to twenty years had nothing to do with her, nor,

what is more, with the Queen Mother, who had in old age become a

preacher, and who now belonged to the "devots" grouped under her

protection.

Moliere by his impiety scandalised these pious people who considered it

wicked for the King to have mistresses.

The question still waiting to be solved was, on which side the master

would definitely range himself. For the moment, Louis XIV. leaned very

strongly towards the friends of good-nature and of his joyous freedom.

Would he be gained over by these? Would the logic of events and ideas

lead him to shake off the trammel of religious practices, then that of

belief, in the fashion of Hugues de Lionne, of the Bussy-Rabutins, of

the Guiche, of the Roquelaure, of the Vardes, and a hundred other

"Libertins," who only saw in the practices of religion a collection of

silly tricks? The obtaining an answer to this query was really the

important affair of the year 1662, a much more serious interest than any

preoccupation in regard to the chronicle of the doings at the Luxembourg

or at Saint-Fargeau.

The young Queen was anxious; she scented danger, but she knew only how

to groan and weep, without comprehending that red eyes and a grumbling

tone were not the best attractions for retaining a husband. She had not

even the consolation of being pitied, having only made the one friend,

Anne of Austria, who in default of something better, forced herself to

preserve some illusions upon the melancholy of the little Queen's

destiny.

It would have been hard to find a better creature than Marie-Therese,

fresh and round, who leapt with joy the day following her marriage, and

related ingenuously to Mme. de Motteville her little romance.

Marie-Therese had always remembered that her mother,[122] who died when

she was only six, had repeated that she desired to see her Queen of

France; that this was the only possible happiness, or, if not attained,

nothing remained but a convent. The little Princess had grown up with

the thought of France. Louis XIV. had been the _Prince Charmant_ of her

infant dreams. When she knew that a French lord came "post haste" to

demand her hand for his master, it seemed to her entirely natural. She

had spied from a window the arrival of M. de Gramont.[123] He had passed

by very quickly, followed by many other Frenchmen, decorated with gold

and silver, and covered with feathers and ribbons of all colours. One

might have said, "a _parterre_ of flowers, bearing the royal demand,"

related the young Queen, becoming poetical for the first and last time

in her life.

Once married, Marie-Therese had demanded of her husband the promise that

they should never be separated, either by day or night, if it possibly

could be avoided. Louis XIV. promised and kept his word, but it was a

useless precaution.

According to Mme. de Motteville and Mme. de Maintenon,[124] the Queen

did not know how to conduct herself toward her husband. She was stupid

in her manner of showing her devotion; if the King wanted her, she would

refuse to sacrifice a prayer in order to be with him. She had also an

"ill-directed" jealousy; if the King did not desire her company, she did

not sufficiently distinguish, in her complaints, against those who wiled

him away, between Mlle. de La Valliere and the Council of Ministers. Her

ill temper was discouraging. If the King led her with him, she

complained of everything; if he did not, there were floods of tears. If

the dinner was not to her taste she sulked; if it pleased her, tormented

herself: "Everything will be eaten, nothing will be left for me." "And

the King jeered at her," added Mademoiselle, having the honour,

through her birth, of being often found amongst those who "eat

everything."

[Illustration: =HELENE LAMBERT, MADAME DE MOTTEVILLE= After the painting

by De Largilliere]

Marie-Therese was good, generous, virtue itself, she had a violent

passion for her husband, and with all this she was a person to be

avoided. Mme. de Maintenon summed up the situation in saying that "the

Queen knew how to love but not how to please; the reverse of the King,

who possessed qualities for pleasing all, without being capable of a

strong affection. All women except his own wife were agreeable to him."

Free-thinkers and debauchees did not have to consider Marie-Therese; she

had not a shadow of influence over her husband. For different reasons,

neither Monsieur, the brother of the King, nor the wife of Monsieur were

any obstacles. Much has been said of the seductive power of Mme.

Henrietta of England[125]; of her irresistible grace, her delicate

beauty, and her special charm. These characteristics, very rare with a

great princess, had proved of great value during her youth of

humiliating poverty, when she was reduced to living as a "private

person." She had then met with "all celebrities, all civility, and all

humanity, even upon ordinary conditions,[126] and nothing perhaps had

contributed more to make her love men and adore women." Her faults were

great, but they were not weighed against her, on account of that gift of

pleasing which was in her and which circumstances had developed. Madame

was a hidden evil influence, and an openly dangerous one. She could

become the centre of low Court intrigues, without losing, or even

risking, the loss of her empire over hearts. To this first good fortune

was united that of having Bossuet to shelter her memory.

Henrietta of England has traversed "centuries protected by his

[Bossuet's] funeral oration," as she passed through her life protected

by the fascination with which nature endows certain women, by no means

always the best ones.

Monsieur since our last encounter with him had not improved. He had, as

might be said, publicly and without shame, established himself in vice,

and in vice of the worst kind. Marriage had done nothing for him. "The

miracle of inflaming the heart of this prince," discreetly explains Mme.

de La Fayette, "was reserved for no woman belonging to the social

world."[127] Delivered over to a crowd of very exacting favourites who

never left him a moment free from domestic complications, Monsieur had,

according to the expressive word of his mother, become indisputably an

intriguer. Between Madame and himself, their court was a place of

inconceivable agitation, a sink of lies and calumnies, of small

perfidies, and little treasons, which make one sick, even when related

by Mme. de La Fayette.

Truly, I hardly know whether or not in writing her _Histoire de Madame

Henriette_ this latter has rendered a service to her dear Princess.

With the exception of the first pages, before the marriage, and of the

beautiful death scene at the end, the rest is a tissue of nothings so

contemptible in every respect that the book falls from one's hands: and

this is all that the author of the _Princesse de Cleves_ has found to

say about a person so prominent; of a sister-in-law to whom Louis XIV.

confided political secrets and whom he loved almost _too_ dearly.

Among all the personages belonging to the royal family, the Libertins

had only to consider the Queen Mother, their declared enemy, and the

King himself, as yet too reserved for it to be divined how he

contemplated accommodating pleasure and religion. It had not taken long

to perceive that he would not restrain himself in pleasure. He was

married, June 9, 1660. A year later commenced the series of mistresses

imposed upon the royal household and upon France, they and their

children, in a fashion which recalls Oriental polygamy rather than the

manners of the Occident. Louis XIV. had felt himself incapable of a

virtuous life. One day, when his mother, profiting by the tenderness

awakened by a reconciliation--they had not spoken for some time to each

other--represented the scandal of his liaison with Mlle. de La Valliere,

he responded cordially with tears of grief which proceeded from the

bottom of his heart, where were still some remains of his former

piety,--"that he knew his wrong; that he felt sometimes the pain and

shame of it; that he had tried his best not to offend God and not to

yield to his passions, but he was forced to confess that they were

stronger than his reason, that he could not resist their violence, and

that he no longer felt any desire so to do."[128]

This conversation took place in July, 1664. The following autumn, the

King having found the Queen, his wife, in tears in her oratoire on

account of a too-well founded jealousy, he gave her the hope of finding

him at thirty "a good husband,"--a somewhat cynical suggestion.

He not only had "violent passions," but he had not discovered any

reasons for restraining himself in regard to women. One reads in his

_Memoires_, which were written for the dauphin to see, a passage worthy

of Lord Chesterfield, in which he gives his son his ideas upon the

subject of kings' mistresses.

The page referred to relates to the year 1667, in which commenced the

war of the _Devolution_:[129]

Before departing for the army, I sent an edict to Parliament. I

raised to a Duchy the territory of Vaujours in favour of Mlle.

de La Valliere and recognised a daughter of mine by her. For,

resolving in accompanying the army not to remain apart from

possible perils, I thought it just to assure to the child the

honour of her birth, and to give to her mother an establishment

suitable to the affection which since her sixth year I had felt

for her. I might have done well not to mention this attachment,

the example of which is not good to follow; but having drawn

much instruction from the failings

of others, I have not wished to deprive you of the lessons you may

learn from mine.

[Illustration: =LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE= From the engraving by Flameng

after the painting by Petitot] [Blank Page]

The first instruction to draw from his failings was that it was not

needful to waste time on women; "that the time devoted to love should

never be taken to the prejudice of other duties." The second

consideration was that in abandoning the heart it was necessary to

remain absolute master of one's mind: that the tenderness of a lover

should be separated from the resolutions of a sovereign; that the fair

one who gives pleasure should never be permitted to speak of affairs, or

of those who serve us, and that the two portions of life should be kept

entirely apart. "You will remember how I have warned you on various

occasions of the harmful influence of favourites; that of a mistress is

still more dangerous."

Louis XIV. insisted at length upon the mental weakness which makes women

dangerous. He had studied them from an intimate point of view, and he

judged "these animals" almost as did Arnolphe. "They are," said he to

the Dauphin, "eloquent in their expressions, pressing in their prayers,

obstinate in their sentiments. No secret can be safe with them. They

always act with calculation, and consequently use 'cunning and

artifice.' However much it may cost to a loving heart, a Prince cannot

take too many 'precautions' with his mistresses. This is a duty imposed

upon him by the throne itself."

Poor La Valliere, so disinterested, so little of an intriguer! What

grief if she had read these cruel pages!

The counsels we have just read are very politic, very prudent; they have

nothing to do with either morality or religion. The royal _Memoires_, in

another part indeed, add that "the Prince should always be a perfect

model of virtue," and also that it is a Christian duty to abstain from

all illicit commerce, "which is _almost never innocent_."

As a matter of fact, Louis XIV. had not extracted much in regard to

moral discipline from a cult of which he knew only the forms. During his

infancy, his mother had reserved to herself his religious education. She

had led him at an early age into the churches, where she passed a

portion of each day, and she had communicated to him a little of her

narrow and mechanical piety. Louis XIV. never understood any other kind.

He knew his catechism but little better than his Latin grammar. This

ignorance was, perhaps, aggravated by the fact of his realising the need

of a knowledge of Latin in order to read diplomatic despatches, while he

could see no use whatever in knowing the facts of religion.

He never changed in this respect; Mme. de Maintenon herself made vain

efforts. The second Madame, La Palatine, did not succeed better. She

wrote: "If he only believed that he should listen to his confessor and

recite his _Pater Noster_, all would go well and his devotion would be

perfect."[130]

Holding these ideas, the King was very vexed, deified as he was by a

crowd of adulators, to meet among his subjects men sufficiently bold to

blame his conduct and to frankly tell him so. Some prelates showed

severity. It belonged to their profession to do so. But that courtiers,

and even, as it was related, a simple bourgeois of Paris, should dare to

address remonstrances to their sovereign,--this could not be

tolerated,--especially as their reproaches excited his mother against

him,--at the risk of an embroilment, which in fact occurred.

As good politics, if for no other reason, Louis XIV. was resolved not to

permit any interference in his affairs. He felt somewhat vaguely that

all these people were uniting to teach him a lesson. He suspected a

considerable organised force behind this _Cabale des Devots_, who

represented austerity at Court, and whom the Libertins of the Louvre

ridiculed.

We know this organised force. We have seen it at work in a former

chapter under the name of _The Compagnie du Saint Sacrement_, when it

was engaged with Vincent de Paul in the great charitable undertakings of

the century.[131] The malevolent nickname of _Cabale des Devots_ had

been given, towards the year 1658, by the many who abominated the

society without knowing its true title or its organisation, simply

because it disturbed the course of their own existence.

Since the date at which we last saw the organisation at work, the

management had been offering the same mixture of good and evil.

Everything that it had done for the relief of the poor, the prisoners,

the galley slaves, and other miserable beings, to protect them against

abuse and tyranny, and to raise them morally, had been above all praise;

as had also its efforts to assure a certain amount of decency in the

streets, or to combat in the higher classes the two curses of the time,

duels and gambling. As much cannot be said of the narrow and fanatical

opinions which rendered it a persecutor and police agent, of its taste

for spying or accusing, of its barbarity in regard to heretics and men

of genius. It easily became dangerous and malignant, and it was

difficult to find defence against this occult power which had "eyes and

ears everywhere." Mazarin, whom it secretly tormented through anonymous

letters, had sought and pursued it with eagerness, and during the last

months of his life the society was forced to hide itself. After the

death of the Cardinal, the _Compagnie_ again put itself in motion, and

it is evident that it had regained confidence, for with only the Queen

Mother for its friend it dared to attack the King.

At this epoch, Anne of Austria is a very interesting person. The

_Compagnie du Saint Sacrement_ had become a political party since it

tried to make sure of the King, and if it had succeeded, the history of

the entire reign would have been altered. Delivered to its influence,

the State would not have delayed until the Great Revolution to trouble

its conscience about the duties towards the people at large.

The imprudence of the conduct of the society towards the King, and his

indiscretions, gave the game to the Libertins. They did not despair,

considering the discontent of the King, of attracting him to themselves,

to their incredulity, their lack of docility towards religious belief,

and in truth, without going to the point of regretting their final

check, we can hardly be sorry that this "routine intelligence" should

have received a slight shock.

The mind of Louis XIV., so remarkable for its justice and solidity, was

the opposite of the modern mind in its total absence of curiosity and in

the difficulty of changing its point of view. The King had need of

skeptical reading. As he never read, the assaults of the Libertins

rendered him the service of slightly moving his ideas; they deranged him

in his habits of mechanical practices.

Olivier d'Ormesson, who was of the _Compagnie du Saint Sacrement_,

wrote, after the Pentecost of 1664, "that the King had not performed his

devotions at the fete, and that Monsieur having demanded if he intended

to 'practice,' he had replied that he was no longer going to be a

hypocrite like himself, who was confessing only to please the Queen

Mother."[132]

The conscience of the King was passing through a crisis; every one felt

this. In the presence of an event of such importance, the misfortunes

of the Grande Mademoiselle, already but little in the thoughts of the

rising generation, completely lost interest. Everything was forgotten.

During the first months of her exile, Mademoiselle was occupied in

opposing the King. Louis XIV. had not abandoned the idea of marrying her

to Alphonse VI., and Turenne was endeavouring to make her "reasonable,"

from which resulted an "interchange of letters" and of official visits

which had the good side of breaking the monotony at Saint-Fargeau. This

time, the life there was very dull. The old animation had not returned.

Too proud to avow it, Mademoiselle expressed herself cheerfully in her

letters. On November 9, 1662, she wrote to Bussy-Rabutin: "I believe

that the sojourn which I shall make here will be longer than you desire.

If I were not afraid of appearing too indifferent, I should say that I

care but little. Perhaps this would be true; but it is not well to

always speak the truth."[133]

Her _Memoires_ are more sincere. She relates that at the end of five

months, she wrote to the King that she should die if she remained

longer; that it was an unhealthy place on account of the marshes by

which the chateau was surrounded; that she "did not believe herself to

have done anything which merited death, and such a death, ... and if he

wished her to make a long penitence for the crimes which she had _not_

committed, she supplicated him to permit her to go to Eu." Louis XIV.

permitted Eu, but made Mademoiselle understand that he had not renounced

the project of marriage with the King of Portugal, and that he hoped to

lead her, through his kindness, "to the sentiments she should have." She

did not delay to discuss the matter. "I departed at once and quitted

Saint-Fargeau without regret." This was a final adieu.

Mademoiselle had just bought the Comte d'Eu, under circumstances which

show how the landed and manorial estates of the ancient regime, which

from a distance appear so solid, were in reality held by the most

fragile tenure and at the mercy of any accident. The Comte d'Eu was the

property of the illustrious and powerful family of Guise. In 1654, the

proprietor of the moment, Louis de Lorraine, duc de Joyeuse, was killed

at the siege of Arras, leaving an only son of youthful age, Louis Joseph

de Lorraine, Prince de Joinville. This child had for guardian his aunt,

Mlle. de Guise, an intelligent and important person, the oracle of the

family, says Saint-Simon. He had also two other guardians, one of whom,

Claude de Bourdeville, Comte de Montresor, had secretly married Mlle. de

Guise. These three guardians soon perceived that they were powerless to

defend the interests confided to them. The Comte d'Eu was burdened with

two million francs of debt, a figure which would not have led to

disaster if the Duc de Joyeuse had been there to make his rights

respected and to reclaim his share of the monarchical manna; such as

pensions, gratifications of the King, benefices, governments, Court

charges. But he was dead, and the property of the minor had been put to

the quarry, by the people of affairs on the one hand, and the Norman

peasants on the other. Against these business sharks, the guardians were

obliged, after years of struggle, to invoke the aid of Parliament. They

addressed a petition[134] in which they stated that their ward, because

he was a child "destitute of the powerful means" which his father would

have possessed, had become the victim of usurers and rogues. The two

million debt of the Comte d'Eu had been largely bought up by artificial

and suspicious creditors, with whom it was impossible to arrive at any

settlement.

These fishers in troubled waters had brought the disorder to its height

in practising seizures. The entire revenue was exhausted by expenses.

The guardians besought Parliament to extricate them from this slough in

ordering a replevin "of all the seizures and judgments, and in according

that there should be a reprieve from all prosecutions and executions

against them during two years." They hoped with this respite to arrive

at a general liquidation.

Against the Norman peasants no one saw anything to do but quickly to

outwit them through the sale of the Comte d'Eu to a master capable of

overawing them. The difficulty, under the conditions in France at that

time, was to find a person of quality able to dispose of several

millions.

Mademoiselle, who always had money, had at once been thought of. At

first, she was too occupied in fighting her father, but the idea struck

her favourably, and as soon as her hands were free she remembered the

suggestion. The bargain was concluded in 1657. This affair did not suit

the pettifoggers. There were so many opposing clauses, so many legal

complications, so many lawsuits, and so many decrees needed in order to

place Mademoiselle in power, and to make it possible for her to possess

Eu in due form, that years rolled by, as the petition of the two

guardians testifies, before the peasants of Eu were deranged in their

work of moles. During the delay, they had continued to devour the

substance of the princely orphan, aided it must be said by other Normans

not peasants, who did not show themselves more scrupulous or less

avaricious.

How both gentles and peasants acted can be exactly known through the

Archives of Eu. At the time of the guardian petition, Mademoiselle had

sent one of her men to take account of the state of affairs.

The report of the agent, completed by other business papers,[135]

establishes that the Comte of Eu drew more than half its revenue from

its forest. This forest, which still exists, contains from ten to eleven

thousand acres,[136] is eight to nine leagues long, and should have been

formed of trees of all ages, if the inhabitants had not worked so

industriously that it was difficult to find a "piece of timber." It was,

at the date of which we are speaking, only underwood, and often only

scrub bushes, on account of the cattle which "damaged it." The entire

neigbourhood had contributed to this extraordinary destruction of a

forest of eight leagues.

The inhabitants of twenty villages, several abbeys, gentlemen, priests,

simple private people had come, under pretext of "ancient rights," to

take the wood as if it belonged to them. The guards of the forest and

their relatives and friends had likewise helped themselves. The

officials of the domain had cut, wrongly or rightly, what the public had

left, and to complete the ruin of the woods, every one had sent cows or

pigs to run through the young bushes.

The agent of Mademoiselle concluded that it was absolutely needful to

stop this pillage, or even "fifty thousand francs' worth of wood could

never be secured annually." He pointed out other abuses; in the absence

of a firm hand the nature of seignorial privilege rendered these

inevitable. I have myself seen many tables of the revenues of the Comte

Eu in the seventeenth century. The frauds must have been easy and

tempting, the collecting of imposts most costly. One notes a payment

due at Christmas, in money and material, by inhabitants, possessors of

any real estate, "house or hovel," field or garden:

"Francis Guignon of the village of Cyrel owes 40 sols 2 capons,

on account of a house in the said Cyrel." "Francois de Buc ...

owes 8 sols a third of a capon, on account of a house."

"Guillaume Fumechon ... owes 43 sols and 2 capons on account of

half an acre of land." "The heirs of Jean Dree owe 8 sols and

the half of a capon." "Jean Rose 31 sols, 2 fowls and 11 eggs,

on account of meadow lands." "The Sieur de Saint-Igny of Mesnil

at Caux owes 4 francs 9 sols, 10 bushels of wheat and the same

quantity of oats." "Alizon owes 3 sols, 6 deniers and one third

of a capon." A cultivator owes "78 quarts of wheat, 15 bushels

of oats and a fowl." Another "2 bushels 1 quart of oats and a

quarter of a goose." Another "5 quarters of a goose,"

and so on through 350 folio pages.

The impost called "_du travers_" was enforced upon merchandise entering

Eu by the gate of Picardy. So much was paid by chariot or loaded horse.

Butchers paid for "every head of cattle, sow, or pig, one denier, for

each white beast, an obole"; vendors of fish for each basket borne upon

the arm, "2 deniers"; furriers for each skin, an obole.

Then comes the impost "upon the 'old clothes,' or 'dyed materials' for

which is due for every bed sold in the city of Eu, new or old, 4

deniers; and for each robe, doublet, or pair of stockings, or any other

article for the use of man or woman, when sold, 1 denier."

The linen merchant also owed one denier, upon pain of amend, for each

cut sold. There was levied a tax upon the measuring of grain and the

weighing of merchandise. The mills were the property of the Lord of Eu,

and grinding was not permitted except for him. The agent of Mademoiselle

recommended the enforcing of this, which had been neglected, with the

result of diminished revenue.

The fishers of Treport paid 500 herrings at each drawing of the nets;

outsiders who came to fish in the Treport, 100 herrings. All stray

animals not reclaimed before one year belonged to the Lord of Eu, and

all royal fish, like sturgeons, whales, porpoises, 8 "_oues de mer_,"

and other large fish.

This is not all, but it is sufficient to explain the rapidity with which

the revenue of a seignorial property melted away when the master was not

there to make the little world afraid, to solicit judges, in case of

lawsuits, according to the usage, and to apply to the King in need, for

an important person, having, according to the popular expression, "the

long arm."

Both evil and possible remedy were known. The deplorable state in which

affairs had been found had not at all disturbed the agent of

Mademoiselle. Knowing his mistress, he did not doubt that she would get

the better of the Normans, and he predicted success. "When everything is

put in order," said he, "(as appears will easily be accomplished) the

Comte of Eu will be a profitable estate yielding a great revenue." The

use of the word "easily" was a slight exaggeration. The Comte of Eu was

finally "adjudged" to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, by "decree" of the

Parliament of Paris, August 20, 1660, for the sum of 2,550,000 francs.

She undertook at once to save the remnants of the forest and found the

population leagued against her to guard its prey.

At the end of six months, Mademoiselle felt that she was hardly strong

enough for the task, and addressed herself to the King.[137] She

explained to him that for the surveillance of her forest she had

established a numerous guard which "cost much to support," but that the

inhabitants had

formed the habit of entering boldly into the said forest and of

committing all sorts of misdemeanours, boasting that they would

continue so to do; that they had just killed with a gun shot in

his stomach, one of her guards for having tried to prevent a

theft of wood; that they were threatening others to have them

appointed collectors of imposts, which would leave them no time

to guard; that they taxed them as peasants, also with other

impositions; that, in one word, the best was done to render the

position of guard untenable.

Mademoiselle consequently begged the King that he would particularly

forbid the inhabitants to carry arms or to have them in their homes,

and, on the other hand, that he would permit her guards to be armed. She

reclaimed for them also certain privileges which would enable them to

punish delinquents. Louis XIV. accorded all, and it proved possible to

stop the depredations. On the death of Mademoiselle, the forest of Eu

was again filled with full-grown trees.

As to suppressing the "rights," it was useless to be first cousin to the

King; this could not be accomplished. All that could be done was to

prevent these rights multiplying and to limit as far as practicable

their exactions. Between the possessors of these "rights" and the

proprietor, there was a chronic state of hostility.

There still exist special "rights" in France; every one can for himself

observe the inconvenience of the system. The only one of those

interested who derived no profits from the game was the little Prince de

Joinville, his creditors having continued their man[oe]uvres to avoid

any settlement.

On March 27, 1661, the Parliament of Paris rendered a decree which

obliged them to accept payment. Eight years had elapsed since the death

of the Duc de Joyeuse. The budget of debts had reached the sum of two

millions of francs.[138] When all was finally settled, instead of having

a balance for their ward, the guardians found themselves in face of a

deficit of more than 150,000 francs.

We have already seen how Gaston, in his position as chief of the House,

had boldly pillaged the fortune of his minor daughter. In the present

case, on the contrary, it was the loss of the father which had given

opportunity for the spoliation of a child. Mazarin had left Gaston

alone as a punishment to Mademoiselle for her conduct during the Fronde.

Louis XIV. seems to have taken little interest in the offshoot of the

turbulent and ambitious family of Guise. In both cases, the favourable

or unfavourable attitude of royalty had decided the issue of an affair

of money.

Mademoiselle took official possession of Eu on August 24, 1661. An entry

such as she loved had been arranged, with procession, banners, Venetian

lanterns, speeches, musket salutes, and the firing of cannon from all

the artillery in the city[139]--one dozen pieces of cannon and forty

_boetes_ upon the ramparts and eight cannon and forty _boetes_ upon the

terrace of the chateau. Mademoiselle returned the following year, but

only actually installed herself at Eu in 1663 after having obtained

permission to leave Saint-Fargeau: "I am resolved to pass my winter

here, without any chagrin at the thought." She watched her workmen,

walked a great deal, and busied herself in the domestic offices. She

also received visits: "There were many provincial people, reasonable

enough; a number of persons of rank; but my heart was heavy. Comedians

came to offer themselves; but I was in no humour for them. I began to be

discouraged. I read; I worked; days were occupied in writing; all these

things made the time pass insensibly."

This page of the _Memoires_ permits a glimpse of a rather restricted

life. A letter from Mademoiselle to Bussy-Rabutin confirms and

accentuates the impression:

EU, November 28, 1663.

Here is the single response to your letters. I claim that you

should write four to my one, and I believe that this will be

better for you; for what can one send from a desert like this,

in which one sees no one all winter, the roads being

impracticable for people from a distance, from Paris for

instance, and the winds being so strong on the plains through

which neighbours must pass that the north-west wind is feared

by all as a furious beast.

The situation of the Chateau d'Eu is melancholy enough, the sea wind

truly "ferocious" in the environs. The gazettes from Paris were filled

with descriptions of fetes and visions of glory, which contrasted with

the mediocrity of a provincial court. Mademoiselle had in vain decided

not to be bored. She discovered that she, like the rest of France, had

no life far from the King; there was nothing left but shadow.

In the memorable conversation in which Louis XIV. avowed to his mother

that he was no longer master of his passions, Anne of Austria had warned

him that he was "too intoxicated with his own grandeur."[140] She spoke

truly; the infatuation had been rapid. The excuse for the King was the

fact that the entire world shared in his self-admiration. It is not our

plan to give any account of the internal government, or of diplomatic

action, which relates to the early attempts of Louis XIV., so

fruitful in great results and so glorious for himself. We limit

ourselves to stating the fact. The superiority of France is manifested

in the first contact with England and Spain, and was not less clearly

felt on the other side of the Rhine. Louis, says a German historian,

possessed an influence in the German Empire, at least in its western

portions, equal if not superior to the authority of the Emperor.[141]

Strangers were almost always struck by the solicitude of his government

for artisans and commercial people.

[Illustration: =JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT= After the painting by Champaign]

Without doubt, sentimental reasons did not count for much; when Colbert

forbade the collectors of taxes to take the cattle from the labourers,

he was simply applying in the name of the King the principles of a good

business man who considers his debtor. But the benefit was no less

great. From whatever point of view one looked, France gave to other

nations the impression of a progressive people. It was recognised that

she had taken the position of head of Europe. The country at large felt

this. It very justly considered this upward flight due to the personal

efforts of its young King, and was grateful for his enormous labour.

Louis well understood this. It was a "party cry" to insist on all

occasions upon the trouble which he took in his "trade of King" and the

great fatigues which he endured for the public good. The _Gazette_, as

an official journal, never failed to emphasise this. Every event was

coloured to this end.

Apropos of a trip of eight days, the journal wrote[142]: "This Prince,

as indefatigable as Hercules in his labours," etc. It justified the

royal ballets, which were most costly, by the excuse of the excessive

brain work of the chief of state.

"On the eighth [January, 1663], the King, wearied with the pains with

which His Majesty works so indefatigably for the welfare of his

subjects, enjoyed in the palace of the Cardinal the diversion of a

ballet of seven acts, called the _Ballet des Arts_."

Louis XIV. danced in the _Ballet des Arts_ three times; Mlles. de

Valliere, de Sevigne, and de Mortemart had a lively success in it; the

latter was on the eve of becoming Mme. de Montespan.[143] The accounts

of the representations of the new ballet alternate in the _Gazette_ with

the funeral ceremonies in honour of a daughter of the King and Queen,

who died at six weeks of age on December 30th.

Louis XIV. had wept over his loss with that superficial sensibility in

which he resembles, strange as it seems, the philosophers of the

seventeenth century. He could have given points to Diderot in regard to

the facility of pouring out torrents of tears, and he often astonished

the Court by his emotion. He deceived the Queen from morning till

evening, and he cried to see her weep when he quitted her. He brought

forth crocodile tears for the death of his father-in-law.[144] In a turn

of the hand, again like Diderot, he forgot his existence, and lost on

his account neither a step in the dance nor a _galant rendezvous_.

[Illustration: ="PLEASURES OF THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT." SCENE ON THE

FIRST DAY OF THE PLAY, BEFORE THE KING AT VERSAILLES= From the engraving

by Israel Silvestre

]

To the ballet succeeded other "relaxations," and it is curious to see

the _Gazette_ taking the pains to explain that the King had well earned

a simple trip for pleasure (April 7, 1663): "This week the King, in

order to gain some relief from the continual application for the

establishing the felicity of his subjects, has enjoyed the diversion of

a little journey to Saint-Germain-en-Laye and to Versailles."

The mundane chronicles[145] falling into line, Louis XIV. saw his

"glory" as a great worker ascending into the clouds, together with his

"glory" as a man of war, and in one word as "universal hero." He could

not even exercise his musketeers without the _Gazette's_ issuing an

extra leaf upon the "admiration of all spectators."[146]

All France struck the same note. When he went to take possession of

Dunkerque,[147] he passed before a plaster Olympus, fabricated for the

occasion. "He witnessed Neptune, who respectfully lowered his trident;

the spirits of the Earth and Sea prostrated before this mighty

Prince"--that is to say, himself, and he permitted his official journal

to regale the country with these follies; it was clear in his eyes that

Neptune and his Court only did their duty. Every one was prepared to

deify him, and he received this homage with pleasure. This atmosphere of

worship was very harmful to a man born with much good sense and with

many superior parts. The brilliancy of his Court, for which he was

considered responsible, contributed also to the general dazzle.

The surging crowd of twenty years later did not yet exist, when the

Chateau of Versailles was finished, and Louis XIV. held his nobility

lodged under his own hand,[148] only moving from his side to make a

campaign. The young Court was only numerous at intervals. It will

shortly be seen how much it had increased in May, 1664. On the 27th of

the following month, the Duc d'Enghien wrote from Fontainebleau: "There

are almost no women here, and but few men. Never has the Court been so

small."[149] On August 16th, also at Fontainebleau, the Queen Mother gave

a ball; she had only sixteen ladies and as many men.[150] In October,

the Court is at Paris, and the King gives a fete: "The ball was not

fine," writes the grand Conde, "the greater number of the ladies

being still in the country. In all Paris, only fourteen could be

found."[151]

[Illustration: ="PLEASURES OF THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT." SECOND DAY=

From the engraving by Israel Silvestre]

During these first years, the nobility was not yet encouraged to leave

all, to come to live under the shadow of the throne. Those having

provincial charges "obtained with difficulty leave of absence."[152]

Those lacking money to appear with fitting magnificence had little aid

to expect from royalty; the shower of gold did not begin to fall until

later, and Louis XIV. even passed for being close-fisted.

"Besides his natural temperament," said Conde, "which is not given to

lavishness, he is held back by M. Colbert, who is still less given to

spending, particularly when he is not persuaded of the advantage of the

affair for which money must be scattered."[153] It is well known that

Colbert did not love waste; but he did know how to be liberal, even for

expenses of luxury. No one was more convinced of the advantage of

display for a sovereign, and he spared neither pains nor state pennies

in making the grand festivals with which his master entertained the

Court and city, unrivalled in Europe. And they were unparalleled,

especially in the early years when tastes, like everything else, were

young. Even the faults, by which perhaps the tastes were benefited, were

youthful.

What is called impulse with the very young man takes the name of vice

with the mature, and, whatever may be said, the one is much uglier than

the other.

Louis XIV. was only twenty-three when he fell in love with Mlle. de La

Valliere, and the festivities which he offered in her honour expressed

this freshness. There were exquisite fairy scenes with the light

decorations of flowers and leaves. The most famous, on account of

Moliere's partial authorship, was called the _Plaisirs de l'Ile

enchantee_, which was given at Versailles in May, 1664. It lasted three

days, and was prolonged three days more, in spite of the great number of

invitations and the difficulties occasioned by the immense crowd. The

Court, says a "Relation,"[154] arrived the fifth of May, and the King

entertained till the fourteenth six hundred guests, beside a quantity of

people needed for the dance and comedy, and of artisans of all sorts

from Paris, so numerous that it appeared a small army.

All now known of Versailles must be forgotten if we wish to picture it

in 1664. Versailles was then a small village surrounded on three sides

by fields and marshes.[155] The fourth side was occupied by a chateau

which would have been spacious for a private person, but which meant

little for a court; a few dependencies; the beginning of a garden

planted by Le Notre. That was all.

[Illustration: =GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES= From the

engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1664]

Colbert considered Versailles already too large, as soon as Louis XIV.

decided to offer anything more to his guests than the four walls of

their chambers. It will be remembered[156] that when Mademoiselle came

to Saint-Germain to visit the Queen Mother she brought her own furniture

and cook. Not even food was provided. This was the general rule.

Louis XIV. aspired to great hospitality, and commenced his reform at

Versailles. "What is very peculiar in this house," wrote Colbert in

1663, "is that his Majesty has desired all apartments given to guests to

be furnished. He also orders every one to be fed and provided with all

necessities, even to the wood and candles in the chambers, which has

never been the custom in royal establishments."

Colbert was evidently in a bad humour. There were, however, but few

apartments to offer in the Chateau of Versailles; the 600 guests soon

perceived this fact themselves.

The journal of Olivier d'Ormesson contains on the date of May 13 the

following lines: "This same day, Mme. de Sevigne has related to us the

diversions of Versailles, which have lasted from Wednesday till

Sunday[157]: courses of bague, ballets, comedies, fireworks, and other

beautiful inventions; but all the courtiers were enraged, for the King

took no care of them, and Monsieurs de Guise and d'Elbeuf could hardly

find a hole in which to shelter themselves." It is to be noted that the

Duc de Guise must costume himself and all his lackeys.

The theme of the fete had been drawn from _Roland furieux_, and had been

made to accord with up-to-date episodes, by a courtier expert in this

kind of work, the Duc de Saint-Aignan. During three days and three

nights, a volunteer company, composed of Louis XIV., Moliere, and the

greatest nobles of France, with the prettiest actresses of Paris,

embellished the imaginations of Ariosto, in the presence of two queens

and of an immense Court which seemed, says the _Gazette_, to have

"exhausted the Indies"[158] in order to cover itself with precious

stones. Halls of verdure, arches of flowers, and the vault of heaven

formed the frame in which deployed the mythological processions, the

games of chivalry, the ballets, the festivities for the "little army,"

and the first two representations of Moliere, of which one was to be the

striking literary event of the century. In the evening, lamps hung upon

the trees were lighted and the fete continued during the night. Gentle

and tender music softened this apotheosis of love, of which the

heroine--and this gave an added charm--remained hidden in the crowd;

Louise de La Valliere was still neither "recognised" nor duchess.

The first of the great days of the fete was open to all. The King of

France and the flower of the nobility as Paladins of Charlemagne,

clothed and armed "a la grecque," according to the seventeenth century

ideas of local colour, took part in a tournament before a sumptuous

assembly who, at the appearance of the master, uttered "cries of joy and

admiration."[159]

[Illustration: =THE FRONT OF THE LOUVRE IN COURSE OF ERECTION= From the

engraving by S. le Clerc, 1677]

Louis XIV. sought these exhibitions. He shone in them and attributed to

them an importance which in his _Memoires_ he explains to his son. He

believed them very efficacious for binding together the affections of

the people, above all those of high rank, and the sovereign. The

populace have always loved spectacles, and for the nobility, the more

closely the King keeps it at Court, the more pains he must take to show

that there is no aversion between sovereign and subject, but simply a

question of reason and duty. Nothing serves better for this than

carrousels and other diversions of the same nature: "This society of

pleasure, which gives to the courtiers an honest familiarity with us,

touches and charms them more than can be told."

The partakers in the "Tournament" of 1664 had in reality been very proud

of the honour done them. They appeared covered with gold, silver, and

jewelry, escorted by pages and gentlemen gallantly equipped. After them,

defiled allegorical chariots, personages of fable, and strange animals,

Moliere as the god Pan, one of his comrades mounted upon an elephant,

another upon a camel.

At the supper in the open air, which terminated the day, the royal table

was served by the _corps de ballet_, who, dancing and whirling bore in

the different dishes. The cavaliers of the tournament, with their

helmets covered with feathers of various colours, and wearing the

mantles of the course, stood erect behind the guests. Two hundred masks,

bearing torches of white wax illumined this admirable living picture,

worthy of the great poet who inspired it.

The next day was occupied in giving to the two hundred guests a lesson

in natural philosophy, no longer symbolical and veiled, but clear and

direct; it was perfectly comprehended and the spectators were convinced.

The lesson was from Moliere, who had written his _Princesse

d'Elide_[160] in the design well formed of "celebrating" and

"justifying" the loves of the King and La Valliere. The _Recit de

l'Aurore_ will be recalled which opens the piece.

Dans l'age ou l'on est amiable,

Rien n'est si beau que d'aimer.

Soupirer librement pour un amant fidele,

Et braver ceux qui voudraient vous blamer.

It will also be recollected that the five acts which follow are only the

development, full of insistence, of that invitation to the ladies of the

Court not to merit the "name of cruel." After serious affairs,

innocent pleasures followed, the most applauded of which was a piece of

fireworks which embraced "the heavens, the earth, and the waters."

[Illustration: =JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIERE= After the painting by

Noel Coypel]

Every one was already thinking of departure, when on Monday, May 12th,

Moliere presented the first act of _Tartuffe_.

The connivance of the King appears well established. Father Rapin

relates that the "sect of the _Devots_" had, since the time of Mazarin,

rendered itself so insupportable by its indiscreet advice, that the

King, "in order to ridicule them, had permitted Moliere to represent

them on the stage." The _Devots_ had seen the blow coming, and did their

best to avoid it; the annals of the _Compagnie du Saint Sacrement_

affirm this.[161] They report that there was "strong talk" in the seance

of April 17th, in the attempt to accomplish the suppression of the

wicked comedy _Tartuffe_.

Each member of the _Compagnie_ charged himself to speak to any friends

who had credit at Court, "begging aid in preventing its representation."

The effort was vain. _Tartuffe_ was acted. The spectators divined

without difficulty whom Moliere had in view, and the _Devots_ heard with

emotion this openly significant expression of contempt of religious

forms, in less than one week after the _Princesse d'Elide_ had thrown

its weight upon the side of questionable morals.

From the point of view of a general principle, the two pieces naturally

followed each other; they were two chapters of the same gospel. The King

had the air of being about to pass to the enemy and of uniting himself

with the Libertins. The Cabal made a desperate effort and _Tartuffe_ was

forbidden; at the same time no one imagined that the battle was

terminated.

An extraordinary agitation around the King might have been seen during

the weeks which followed the fetes of Versailles. The Court at once

departed for Fontainebleau; the two parties disputed the entire summer

over the young monarch.

Louis himself had skirmished with both. The King felt at the same time a

personal revolt against the constraints of the Church, and the need of a

politic catholicity which would sustain the practices of religion for

State reasons, because he could not do without their aid. These two

fashions of thinking can easily be accommodated together, and the King

was in train to learn how to do this. After a little delay, the

conciliation between the two points of view was completed in his mind.

While waiting, he lived in the midst of floods of tears. The summer was

a very troubled one.

Such events held the attention of Paris, but the poor Mademoiselle,

forgotten in the Chateau d'Eu, fretted so much that at length her pride

was conquered. "Upon the news of the pregnancy of the Queen," says the

_Memoires_, "I decided to write, dreaming that perhaps the King wished

to be besought," and she abased herself to do this. She at first

expressed the hope that the child might be a son. "I exaggerated with

good faith the desire which I had, and I showed the grief I felt in

being forced to remain so long without the honour of seeing him [the

King]. I said everything I could to oblige him to permit me to return."

She wrote at the same time to Colbert, who was considered the powerful

man of the ministry:

EU, March 23, 1664.

MONSIEUR COLBERT:

In bearing testimony to the King of the joy which I have in the

pregnancy of the Queen, I am daring to command his good graces,

and the permission for an audience to ask them in person.

I trust that you will assist me with your good offices to

obtain so precious a favour. If I cannot succeed in obtaining

this, I beg to be permitted to pass through Paris before

May,[162] having three considerable lawsuits at this date. I

look, on this occasion, for the continuation of your good

offices.

ANNE-MARIE-LOUISE D'ORLEANS.

The King waited two months before responding:

TO MY COUSIN MADEMOISELLE, ELDEST DAUGHTER OF THE

LATE MONSEIGNEUR DUC D'ORLEANS

MY COUSIN:

It consoles me much to find you in the state of mind which your

letter shows. I willingly forget the past and permit you not

only to pass through Paris, but also either to dwell there, or

to choose any other place of residence which may be agreeable

to you, and even to come here in case you wish it, if you

assure me that your conduct will always give me reason for

cherishing you and for treating you properly as a personage so

nearly related.

I thank you for the affection with which you write to me of the

Queen's pregnancy and pray, etc.

LOUIS.

Some days later Mademoiselle was _en route_ for Fontainebleau, well

resolved to show herself. She was transported with joy at having

recovered liberty of movement, but the Court at this time inspired her

with terror. The ground had become too slippery for a person of her

temperament, loving so much her independence and rebellious to all

discipline.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 94: "_Portrait de Mademoiselle fait par elle-meme_" (Nov.,

1657) in _La Galerie des Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_,

edited by Eduard de Barthelemy (Paris, 1860).]

[Footnote 95: Mme. de Rambouillet died very aged in 1665. Her influence

ended in 1650.]

[Footnote 96: _Le Grand Cyrus._ The greater part of the friends of Mlle.

de Scudery are given assumed names. Mlle. Bocquet is called Agelaste.]

[Footnote 97: Cf. _La Societe francaise au XVII{e}. siecle_, vol., ch.

xv.]

[Footnote 98: This is the friend of Mme. de Sevigne.]

[Footnote 99: Sister-in-law of the preceding. She married, in 1662,

Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Jena.]

[Footnote 100: Mademoiselle says in her _Memoires_ that they "_had_" them

written. This is an error.]

[Footnote 101: _La Galerie des Portraits._]

[Footnote 102: M. de Barthelemy, editor of the _Galerie des Portraits_,

called Honorat de Bueil, marquis de Racan; born in 1589, died in 1670.]

[Footnote 103: Or forty-six, depending upon the date of the Portrait,

1658 or 1659.]

[Footnote 104: _L'Ecole des Femmes_ was issued in 1662.]

[Footnote 105: The expression is from the beautiful Marquise de Mauny,

who formed part of the little Court of Saint-Fargeau.]

[Footnote 106: From Mme. de Sainctot, wife of the master of ceremonies

and introducer of ambassadors under Louis XIV. She was a friend of

Voiture.]

[Footnote 107: The others are, _Vie de Madame de Fouquerolles_, supposed

autobiography of a lady mixed up with Fronde intrigues (MS. exists in

the library of the Arsenal), and _La Relation de l'Isle imaginaire_

(1658), badinage upon an episode in _Don Quixote_.]

[Footnote 108: _Memoires._ Francois-Timoleon de Choisy was born in 1644.

There is some question as to who was his mother.]

[Footnote 109: Marguerite Louise d'Orleans was born July 28, 1645;

Elisabeth, called Mlle. d'Alencon, December 26, 1646;

Francoise-Madeleine, called Mlle. de Valois, October 13, 1648.]

[Footnote 110: Born at Tours in 1644. Her father, Laurent de La Baume Le

Blanc, Seigneur de La Valliere, dying in 1654, her mother remarried

Jacques de Courtavel, marquis de Saint-Remi, maitre d'hotel de Gaston

d'Orleans.]

[Footnote 111: Cf. _Madame, Memoirs of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans_,

by Julia Cartwright (London, 1894).]

[Footnote 112: Lady Derby was a La Tremouille. The sister-in-law to whom

the letters are addressed was the sister of Turenne.]

[Footnote 113: Or Charles IV.; there are two methods of counting the

Dukes of Lorraine.]

[Footnote 114: See the very curious volume by M. Rodocanachi, _Les

Infortunes d'une petite-fille d'Henri IV._ The marriage of the Princess

Marguerite with the Duke of Tuscany took place April 19, 1661.]

[Footnote 115: _Memoires_ of Mademoiselle.]

[Footnote 116: Par Fortin de la Hoguete (1645).]

[Footnote 117: _L'Image du Souverain_ (1649).]

[Footnote 118: _Memoires pour 1667._ Ed. by Charles Dreyss.]

[Footnote 119: Portugal had again become independent in 1640.]

[Footnote 120: _Memoires_ for the year 1661.]

[Footnote 121: Mignet, _Negociations relatives a la succession

d'Espagne_.]

[Footnote 122: Elisabeth de France, daughter of Henry IV., born in 1602.

She married Philip IV., in 1615, gave birth to Marie-Therese in 1638,

and died in 1644.]

[Footnote 123: This was the Marshal de Gramont, father of the Comte de

Guiche. The "magnificence" and the "_galanterie_" of his journey to

Madrid to demand the Infanta have left lively memories.]

[Footnote 124: _Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus_, _Memoires de Mme. de

Motteville_, _Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon_, published by the Comte

de Haussonville and M. G. Hanotaux.]

[Footnote 125: Married on April 1, 1661, at seventeen. Monsieur

(Philippe de France, duc d'Orleans) was then twenty-one.]

[Footnote 126: _Histoire de Madame Henriette d'Angleterre_, by Mme. de

La Fayette.]

[Footnote 127: _Histoire de Madame de Henriette_, etc.]

[Footnote 128: _Memoires de Mme. de Motteville._]

[Footnote 129: War between relations in regard to property.]

[Footnote 130: Letter of July 9, 1749, and _passim_, in his

correspondence.]

[Footnote 131: Cf. _La Cabale des Devots_, by M. Raoul Allier.]

[Footnote 132: _Journal d'Olivier Lefevre d'Ormesson._]

[Footnote 133: _Memoires de Bussy-Rabutin._]

[Footnote 134: _A nos Seigneurs de Parlement._--Archives of the Chateau

of Eu. Mgr. le Duc d'Orleans has thrown open to me the Archives of Eu

with a liberality for which I here heartily express my gratitude.]

[Footnote 135: _Declaration par le Menu du Comte d'Eu_ (May 8, 1660),

and _Inventoire general du Comte d'Eu_ (July 1, 1663).]

[Footnote 136: The Norman acre contains 81 acres and 71 _centiares._]

[Footnote 137: Her request to the King was dated February 9, 1661

(Archives of Eu).]

[Footnote 138: The debts amounted exactly to 2,700,718 frs. 18 sols.

(_Liste des Creanciers_ in Archives of the Chateau of Eu). It will be

remembered that Mademoiselle paid for Eu 2,550,000 frs.]

[Footnote 139: The account of the entry of Mademoiselle is in the

Archives of the Chateau of Eu.]

[Footnote 140: Motteville.]

[Footnote 141: _Histoire de France_, by Leopold Ranke.]

[Footnote 142: _Numero_ of September 14, 1663.]

[Footnote 143: The marriage took place on January 28th.]

[Footnote 144: Philippe IV. died September 17, 1665.]

[Footnote 145: Cf. _La Relation des Divertissements que le Roi a donnes

aux Reines_, etc., by Marigny (June, 1664).]

[Footnote 146: Number of July, 21, 1663, and _passim_.]

[Footnote 147: Louis XIV. had bought Dunkerque from the King of England.

The city was delivered November 27, 1662. For account of the entrance of

the King, see the _Gazette_.]

[Footnote 148: Louis XIV. was installed at Versailles, as a residence,

May 6, 1682.]

[Footnote 149: Letter to the Queen of Poland, Marie de Gonzague

(Archives of Chantilly). The Duc d'Enghien had married, December 11,

1663, Anne de Bariere, daughter of the Princess Palatine and niece of

Marie de Gonzague.]

[Footnote 150: _Journal d'Olivier d'Ormesson._]

[Footnote 151: Letter of October 31st to the Queen of Poland (Archives

of Chantilly).]

[Footnote 152: Cf. _De La Valliere a Montespan_, by Jean Lemoine and

Andre Lichtenberger.]

[Footnote 153: Letter dated December 28, 1663, to the Queen of Poland

(Archives of Chantilly).]

[Footnote 154: See the _Moliere_ of the _Grands Ecrivains_, v., iv.]

[Footnote 155: See the contemporary engravings. Some reproductions will

be found in the beautiful work of M. de Nolhac, _La Creation de

Versailles_.]

[Footnote 156: See the _Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle_.]

[Footnote 157: From the 7th to the 11th of May, the first two days and

the last two not counted.]

[Footnote 158: Number of February 3, 1663, apropos of a ball given at

the Louvre by the King on January 31st.]

[Footnote 159: For this portion, see the _Gazette_ of May 17th, the

letters from Loret of the 10th and 17th, various _Relations du temps_,

the _Moliere_ of the _Grands Ecrivains_, etc.]

[Footnote 160: _Louise de La Valliere_, by J. Lair.]

[Footnote 161: See _La Cabale des Devots_, by M. Raoul Allier.]

[Footnote 162: A doubtful phrase.]